Feeding Philosophy, In a Nutshell

My feeding philosophy is this: fresh is better than cooked; live is better than "dead"; natural food is better than synthetic/artificial/manufactured. While I adjust the foods for protein levels throughout the year (to avoid breeding behaviors or egg laying, and to enhance feather regrowth after molts) as well as per species, the basics are the same.

To define my terms as used above:

Live food - germinated or sprouted seeds, grains, and legumes, where the nutrients are bioavailable and combined with the phytonutrients, perfectly balanced, for maximum nutritional impact.

Dormant food - Seeds, grains, and legumes that have not been germinated; these do have nutritive value (some more than others).

Cooked food - Cooking affects nutrition. There is no need to cook (alter natural nutritive values) food for parrots although as a portion of a well-balanced diet most do enjoy birdie breads and mashes.

Dead food - Foods by which the natural nutrition has been lost in processing; large manufacturers attempt to make up the deficits by the addition of synthetic/artificial "nutrients", and/or colorings and flavorings. Dead foods contain no phytos.

OK, FP, so what do you feed your birds?

Golly, I'm glad you asked! :)

As you probably gathered, I'm not a fan of pellets or other fake foods. Nor am I a fan of a lot of cooked foods. Looking at the way parrots were designed you can see that they have a beak perfect for cracking things like nuts and seeds and grain hulls. And, I've read from more than one source that their digestive systems weren't made for cooked foods either, so eventually they can cause problems. Besides, who wants to cook out all the great nutrients? The nutrients that aren't impacted negatively by cooking are minimal.

So. My birds get a cage mix (one of my products) that contains mostly natural and very little previously-cooked foods - but some seeds and grains and germinated seed/grain/legumes and fruits and vegetables and greens and nuts...of course they don't all eat the same thing so the ingredients vary. But the food is made by me so I know it's fresh, it uses good-quality ingredients, and it contains variety.

Mornings they get a birdie bread or other cooked breakfast. I of course make birdie bread mixes, so that's what I feed. Afternoons are sprouts and/or veggies and/or whatever I mix with them. Most days sprouts and veggies, although the pionus hens are heavy on the veggies and light on the sprouts. Some days I mix in some rice or couscous or a scrambled egg, cooled. But their fresh foods are the main meal of the day.

Then of course, there is always, "I'd like a little of what you're eating, please." Ok, I lied - they rarely say please. They just take what they want :).

Our parrots are part of our lives, and live in the living room with us. I've had them in a bird room before but it just didn't seem right having our other pets right where we could interact but not the birds. So when we moved a couple of years ago, we bought a home that had space in the living room for our birds, and that has a door that separates the living space from the bedrooms. During the day we can put our 4 dogs and our cat in the back half of the house, and the birds can fly (yes, they fly, and my dogs and cat also run) around and play and exercise and spend time with us. When they're in cages, we still are continually interacting, with talking/conversations, scritches, food-sharing, and the offering of gifts such as popsicle sticks and blocks and other fun stuff.

If I'm ever able to enlarge our living area, I plan to widen the living room by the construction an addition with windows all around, a tile floor, and its own ventilation system. That way the birds will always still be with us, but will have an area that will enhance their own lives as well...and that will be easier to clean!

But back to feeding. I'd say overall they get maybe 90% of their daily intake from uncooked and/or fresh foods, and 100% of their daily nutrients from real food. They've been thriving on this diet for so many years I can't see any reason to change it.

Why Does It Seem So Complicated???

Who am I, and what makes me think I'm qualified to write on such a subject? Well, I'm just a parrot owner of multiple birds, and I'm probably no more or less qualified than any other parrot owner. We all do the best we know how for our birds; we all (I would hope!) have done the research and not simply taken any opinion (from vet to usenet) and based our birds' well-being on it; we have all examined the various options and feed our birds according to what makes the most sense. Maybe we don't all make our living doing something that we not only LOVE to do, but that benefits our own birds as well and many thousands of others as I do, but certainly any of us could do what I've done, with the right experience, motivation, and circumstances!

My flock's diet consists of 90% my own products. I recently lost my first parrot, a cockatiel, at the age of 28. The remainder of my flock consists of some lovebirds, some cockatiels, a conure, a couple of pionus, a couple of poicephalus, and an african grey. I'm sure I'll write more about them later. For now, suffice it to say that my flock eats a natural diet, no chemicals, no nutrient-wanna-be's with names I can't pronounce, and no colored kibble. They get real food.

Feeding parrots isn't rocket science, although there are those who claim special knowledge and would like us to think that we can't possibly know what is best for our own birds. Most of them have an interest of once sort or another - financial gain, usually. Or, for all their degrees, they simply don't know any better because they've been "educated" by peers who have such an interest. But we don't need a degree to feed our parrots (and other companion pets!); we just need a thirst for knowledge, and the common sense to weigh all of the opinions* out there and the confidence to make our own choices.

Do I have a financial interest in how people feed their parrots? Sure, I do! Am I going to tell you how to feed your own birds? Nope. I'm not even going to try and sell you my products. I may mention them now and again, eventually, but I always have been and always will be out there with my thoughts and ideas: (1) I put forth opinions; if I offer facts, I will also offer cites; if I offer the opinions of others, I will identify them as such. (2) I won't use this blog as a platform to sell my own products - I have plenty of vendors selling them who already promote them. (3) It's all about the birds, not making myself seem to more important or knowledgable than I am, or anybody else for that matter.

The plan: To share what I've read and what I've learned and my own thoughts and opinions on them...and to share my own experiences, successes and failures, and hindsight thoughts on those as well. So that you can add it to everything else you've read and heard, and make the most informed choice you can when you are feeding your own birds.

*There are those who confuse opinion with fact, especially if the opinion is their own.